We and Player Piano

[jenks]

I think that what I did like was the way Vonnegut does not use nameless/faceless politicians but instead the power of management - the slice of middle america who eventually rise to be the power brokers. I like the fifties view of technology - both wide eyed in wonder at the ingenuity of human invention - the skills to create and fix things. Vonnegut himself was initially an engineer and I think he never loses that noble vision of the imaginative powers of making things.

However, he is also aware of the machinations of the machine age - player pianos indeed - they can replicate a human action but without the humanity, as if that is an honourable action in its own right.

I found the attack on the tree strangely disturbing!

Also I like the way he nails the whole group bonding, outward bounds kind of team building thing

Been awhile since i finished it now - i'll need to go have another look ( am currently doing Dick's High Tower thing to finish off my dystopian fiction jag)

 

[IdleRich]

"I think that what I did like was the way Vonnegut does not use nameless/faceless politicians but instead the power of management - the slice of middle america who eventually rise to be the power brokers."

Yes indeed, there is no Big Brother (even if Big Brother doesn't exist in 1984 he is at least a figurehead) but rather a system into which everyone must fit and which is so blank that before it everything else is totally ineffective - a bit like a telephone call centre when you can never get to the centre and are constantly being shunted around by minions who can't actually help you.

"I like the fifties view of technology - both wide eyed in wonder at the ingenuity of human invention - the skills to create and fix things. Vonnegut himself was initially an engineer and I think he never loses that noble vision of the imaginative powers of making things."

Yes, and all the mechanical computers seem quaint now but none the less scary for it.
At the end everyone starts smashing up all the machines but the leaders of the revolution are as horrified by this as by total mechanisation - is this because they are moderates or because they have some residual love for machines or does this represent Vonnegut's demonstration of the bind that they are in because if they don't do that they will just be on an earlier step on the same fork and that they wil be inevitably carried back to the same dystopia?

"However, he is also aware of the machinations of the machine age - player pianos indeed - they can replicate a human action but without the humanity, as if that is an honourable action in its own right."

I guess that's the crux of the book really - somethings are boring and are well replaced by machines. Other things, even though they could be done by machines that doesn't necessarily mean that they should be. I guess the analogue now would be to point out that cost-effectiveness and efficiency are not always automatically the be-all and end-all.

"Also I like the way he nails the whole group bonding, outward bounds kind of team building thing."

Oh yeah, although obviously exaggerated for effect, that was horribly familiar.